Instructor: Dr. Robert S. Carlisle
Section: 01; MWF from 9:30-10:55
Office: 201E Faculty Tower
Office Hours: MWF 11:00 to 12:30
Email Address: rcarlisle@csub.edu

Required Texts
Carlisle, R. S. (1999). Lectures in the Structure of English. Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co.
Carlisle, R. S. (1999). Exercises in English Phonology and Morphology. Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co.
Carlisle, R. S. (1999). Exercises in English Syntax. Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co.

This class is primarily designed to provide students with a broad knowledge of the three major components of the structure of English: phonology, morphology, and syntax. The class concentrates on providing students with a systematic means for identifying, describing, and categorizing linguistic structures. In addition, a few given grammatical structures will be presented in reference to children and second language learners. Such an approach enables students to view grammar not as an isolated and irrelevant topic, but rather one that enables them to understand the type of linguistic structures that these groups produce and the reasons for their production. Specifically, we will briefly examine the pronunciation of English by native Spanish speakers and the deletion of inflectional morphemes by elementary school children (both native and non-native speakers of English).

We will also examine the relationship between phonemes and graphemes in English to try to determine why some children have so much difficulty learning to spell and read.

Students will find a general list of the topics and the dates that they will be covered in the class schedule.

All students in the class must take a pretest which will be available online from 9:00 a.m. on September 14 to 10:00 p.m. on September 21. The score on the pretest is not part of the students' final grades. It is used as a diagnostic to measure the effectiveness of the class. Students can expect to do poorly on the pretest. The average score over the last five years is 38.7. In contrast, the average score on the final exam, which covers the same material as the pretest, is 84.7.

All students must complete the pretest. Students who do not complete the pretest will lose access to WebCt.

Online Orientation
All students must complete the online orientation.
Any student not completing the online orientation will not be allowed to continue in the class. The orientation introduces the students to WebCt and its tools.

Students essentially learn the material for this course by doing a large number of exercises in phonology, morphology, and syntax. Over the years, I have discovered a direct correlation between doing the exercises and scores on the examinations; students who complete the online exercises and the exercises in the books do much better on the examinations than those who do not. Also, students who have higher averages on the exercises do better than those with lower averages. As a consequence of this finding, I now base 10% of the final grade on exercise scores. Students may take the online exercises as many times as they wish to increase their knowledge of the subject matter and to improve their grades. On the days of the exams, students must bring their exercise books and demonstrate that they have completed all the exercises in them. Students who do not turn in their exercise books will receive a score of zero for all exercises.

All examinations are online in WebCt, and the sub-sections of the examinations cover the same material as do the online exercises. However, whereas students can retake the online exercises as many times as they wish, they can do the sub-sections of exams only once. In addition, on all examinations students will see only one item at a time, which they must complete before moving on. Once students have completed an item, the system will not allow them to go back and change the answer.

The final average for the class will be calculated according to the following schema. The weight of the exercises, and the examinations appear below:

As indicated in the table above, examinations are given on specific dates and times; students who are enrolled in this section must take the exams in the designated labs above.

I will assign final grades according to the following schema:

The online exercises are located on a CSUB server running WebCt, the web-based teaching software used to design the course. To get into WebCt, students need a userid and a password. The userid for all students will be the same as that of their Runner accounts. The password for all students is the last five digits of their social security number or the last five digits of their new student identification number. However, students can change their own passwords once they get into the system.

I urge students to go to WebCt and hit the link entitled "Getting Started." Students do not need a userid or password to get into this section of WebCt, and the section has important information about the system.

Communicating with the Instructor

I have scheduled four hours of office hours per week for students, but I realize that many students have problems meeting with their instructors at specific times. Therefore, I actively encourage students to send me  messages if they have questions about the content of the course. The questions should be as specific as possible and relate directly to the material being studied. More general questions should be asked during the class. I can guarantee same day responses to email messages. I prefer that students do not phone me; many do not leave phone numbers; others say them so fast that I cannot hear them; and still others do not have answering machines. Students who phone may not receive an answer for the reasons listed above.

What is Online if Students Miss Classes Students will find all the class lectures online as well as the answers to most of the exercises from the two exercise books.

If you enjoy this course, the minor in linguistics might be for you.